Is there a 'Sonic Maker' or equivalent?

I mean, again, that goes back to how ingenious the design of the framework is.

A bunch of prefab tiles to start you off, with the ability to copy/paste to a user library and then modify for example caters to both, while obfuscating the more complicated layer for the layman.

But then again, it really still does go back to the discussion that most people who would be able to make a decent level design are the same sort who would figure out more complicated tools rather than a Maker, anyway.

Mario Maker has gotten worse if anything w.r.t. finding levels that are actually fun to play. That would probably just get worse with Sonic style platforming, and I'm not even taking a dig at the community.

If there were a Sonic maker, it would become very, very apparant to the masses that Sonic is a totally different beast to most games and making a Sonic game is pretty damn difficult, for reasons other people have explained.

With a library of objects and level themes, and support tools, my Sonic 2 Lockon PoC could become something like a "Sonic Maker". You would choose a game style, a level theme, and the types of objects/enemies you want, then use SonLVL or SonED2 to create a level layout, and have the tool generate a binary that can be appended to the base ROM to play a single level, or with other binaries to make a level pack.

It wouldn't be as easy to use as Super Mario Maker, but it wouldn't be tremendously difficult. A fangame would remove certain restrictions, but then you would have to recreate the behaviors of all the objects.

If there were a Sonic maker, it would become very, very apparant to the masses that Sonic is a totally different beast to most games and making a Sonic game is pretty damn difficult, for reasons other people have explained.

I don't necessarily see how that would be a bad thing

Having a greater understanding of games and how they get made and what that actually "means" is ultimately a good thing

Having a greater understanding of games and how they get made and what that actually "means" is ultimately a good thing

By that reasoning, Mario Maker shouldn't exist, and the masses should all be using Lunar Magic and assembly instead.
In fact, just let people use Game Maker or heck, better yet, raw code, let em all learn just what it takes to make a game.
Point is, where do you draw the line? If you're going to reason that a much greater deal of complexity for such a thing is better as an educational tool, might as well go to the logical conclusion of that.

I say that because coding well is a different science from designing fun levels. Even with older commercial video games, the people using the tools to make good levels weren't always also the ones writing them. (Which is quite different from small indie teams where everyone has to multi-talented and useful in more areas than one or bust.)

Although I do have to admit that coding does teach you the hardware or software limitations everyone faces while making game content. I know trying to design my own level editor was quite difficult and humbling. While I already gained a lot of respect for game developers from all of my time working on fan games, attempting to go as far as making my own development tools deepened that respect in more ways than I can readily articulate.

Having a greater understanding of games and how they get made and what that actually "means" is ultimately a good thing

In fact, just let people use Game Maker or heck, better yet, raw code, let em all learn just what it takes to make a game.
Point is, where do you draw the line?

If we are talking about game making as a whole and not just level design. An engine holding your hand every step of the way could spoil you irrepearable.
People insert a model in the game and have the arrow keys move it and 'look ma I can make games'. For people that don't know any better, they'd think the shiny graphics were done by the person who in fact only spent 10 minutes with a tutorial on YouTube. It is really harmful for both parties, the one that tries the tutorial and the observer that doesnt know how games are made and claps at the 'achievement' .

I recently saw a guy paying 6 figure for a game project. You wouldnt believe what it consisted of.
The 'team' used Unity3D and as a base one of the official free scenes. They swapped the scene with a new low poly one, and the character again with a new low poly one.
That was it. The character was about 1000 triangles, and they even used the skeletal animations of the demo scene. The terrain was about as detailed as an open world Dreamcast game. And it was static as hell.
Then the boss flew over the world and wondered why they gave him lukewarm responses at conferences and expos. This happened in this fucking 2015.

If that's the case, then games like Max & the Magic Marker, The Word Ends With You: Solo Remix, Temple Run 2, Surgeon Simulator 2013, Plague Inc, Armikrog, and Cities: Skylines all fall short. As easy as it is for people to do asset flips like that, it's still a full-powered engine that can be used properly for some very good things. It is intrinsically distinct from Mario Maker and a theoretical Sonic Maker in that you can make whatever game you want, and there's no real limitations, regardless of how simple it is to "make" utter trash.

I recently saw a guy paying 6 figure for a game project. You wouldnt believe what it consisted of.
The 'team' used Unity3D and as a base one of the official free scenes. They swapped the scene with a new low poly one, and the character again with a new low poly one.
That was it. The character was about 1000 triangles, and they even used the skeletal animations of the demo scene. The terrain was about as detailed as an open world Dreamcast game. And it was static as hell.
Then the boss flew over the world and wondered why they gave him lukewarm responses at conferences and expos. This happened in this fucking 2015.

So on the question, Unity3D is where you draw the line.

Guess we now know where Digital Homicide gets their funds.

Anyway, this is why making game development tools easier to use and get is kind of a double edged sword. It's become easier for people to make cool stuff because of how easy it is to just download Unity or Unreal Engine, and because of how well documented those engines now are. This is partially why there are so many more indie games lately. It's also a great teaching tool.

On the other hand, it's also a lot easier for people to just buy or download some assets and use those to put out shit. See everything Digital Homicide puts out. I kinda see it more as a necessary evil though.

On which side of the line are you placing Unity? Just because some morons made a crap demo out of butchered lifted assets doesn't make Unity bad. It just means bad devs (if you can even call them devs) happened to use Unity to create their shit show. Unity is actually quite powerful and versatile, and capable of producing great games in the right hands. It gets a bad rap because its low barrier of entry means a flood of amateurs producing lousy content with it. This is a problem with the users, not the tool.

On which side of the line are you placing Unity? Just because some morons made a crap demo out of butchered lifted assets doesn't make Unity bad. It just means bad devs (if you can even call them devs) happened to use Unity to create their shit show. Unity is actually quite powerful and versatile, and capable of producing great games in the right hands. It gets a bad rap because its low barrier of entry means a flood of amateurs producing lousy content with it. This is a problem with the users, not the tool.

Indeed. Unity is great precisely because of both of these things.

Even if you're completely useless, you can knock up something shitty in Unity in ten minutes and make it playable.

This is like every ReadySonic/BOOM disassembly discussion ever. Basically, fuck lazy people, they didn't write their own code/they didn't make their own engine/they wrote it in Java/they didn't make their own language/they didn't make their own hardware/they didn't make their own science.

It's not exactly a recent thing, though. I mean, the DOOM and Build engines were used by a whole bunch of people back in the day. Still, having taken up 68k ASM and C, I only laugh at my Game Maker 7 days. Oh wait, with C I use SDL, and with 68k ASM I use Sonic Team's Sonic engine. Does that make me a hypocrite?

I don't know who's side I'm on. Truth be told, I was actually pretty annoyed that Freedom Planet was built on the same pre-made thing as Five Nights at Freddy's. In fact I'm still annoyed at how, even after all that time and especially money, even the latest FNaF fad-fest is still using that thing. It screams 'lazy' to me, saying 'screw it' to stability, or any kind of optimisation, and going with something purely because it's easier for you, the developer. That old version of Freedom Planet did have a rendering problem, IIRC, and I know for a fact FNaF is riddled with display issues. I also know that a well-designed version of FNaF could run on my Xperia Play with no problems, but, no, brush me aside and give me a laggy mess because you can't be arsed.

Yes, those people who only know how to do the art, music, design etc. of a video game and can't do programming are indeed incredibly lazy.

Seriously though, if you think that the main thing to making a video game is knowing how engines and programming languages work, then really you probably don't know much about what goes into making them.